Sumilon Bluewater Resort (part 1): Welcome to Sumilon!

Nov 8, 2011

WARNING! Read this blog entry before purchasing a Sumilon Bluewater deal from a MetroDeal. As of the time of this blog post, I confirmed with Sumilon Bluewater that their only partner site is Deal Grocer.

Day 1

28 October 2011

According to our tour guide, Sumilon comes from the word sumilong ('take shelter' in Filipino) because fishermen used to go to the island to seek protection during storms and strong winds.

How To Get There

To get to Sumilon Bluewater Resort, you have to travel by plane, by car, then by boat.

Flight (1 hour)

There are 2 ways to get
to Sumilon from Manila, via Cebu or via Dumaguete. The Dumaguete route
is shorter but we opted for the Cebu route. From Manila,
we took a Cebu Pacific flight to Mactan, Cebu.

Car Ride (4 hours)

From the Mactan Airport in Cebu,
we traveled by land for 3-4 hours to Sumilon's port. At the port, we were led to the lounge and served cold welcome drinks.

The boat isn't there yet when we arrive so I go around first to take photos.

The waiting area gives us a sneak peek of what awaited us in Sumilon -- numerous beach chairs along the white sandy shore.

Normally, I'd be so impatient (read: excited to get to our destination) but because the view surrounding the lounge is so pretty, I didn't mind waiting. I could see different shades of blue and green!

Boat Ride (10 minutes)

After 10-15 minutes, our transfer arrives. It is a bright sunny day and the water is calm and peaceful.

Upon arriving, we are greeted by a Sumilon staff who leads us to our cottage.

We are also given an orientation -- meal times, activities we can do, and places where we can go.

I love the decor, everything is native. It's like living the island life but a bit glammed up. Staying true to this theme, we are given this bamboo instead of the usual hotel room sign. Green on top means 'Please clean room' while red on top means 'Do not disturb'.

Our cottage villa is huge! It has two queen sized beds and a spacious balcony with a view of the sea.

Even the bathroom is super sized!

There are no cabinets though. Just a lot of shelves and a few hangers. As for toiletries, they only have the basics -- shampoo/conditioner, soap, cotton buds, toothbrush and toothpaste.

It is almost noon when we arrive so we ask them to prepare our lunch. Below is the pathway from the cottages to the pavilion.

T and I both have Mushroom Soup.

Followed by a Cold Shrimp Salad.

For the main, I order Grilled Prawns. It is super yummy! I'm not in the mood to eat rice just yet so when I asked the server not to serve the rice anymore, they offer to replace it with mashed potatoes instead. Thank you chef!

On the other hand, T had the Grilled Fish. He also had it with mashed potatoes. Another good dish!

For dessert, we each have a slice of Brazo de Mercedes.

Only relaxation is on the agenda for our first day on the island so we head towards the Garden Eel Plaza where there are huts and beach chairs scattered across the shore where we can stay.

The Garden Eel Plaza is home to a lot of fish and a good snorkeling spot. But lazy day and all, I ended up reading 'A Clash of Kings' and exploring the shore instead while T slept the whole afternoon.

On the other side of the Garden Eel Plaza is the Lagoon. Guests are allowed to kayak in this area.

I woke T up at around 5 in the afternoon so we could explore the other beach. The resort offers tram rides to different parts of the island but it was a beautiful day so we decided to walk.

We didn't have the map with us that time so we kind of got lost in the forest. After a few more minutes of walking, we saw a Sumilon guide who led us to the famous sandbar.

The sandbar shifts day to day, sometimes even hour after hour. It seemed like a perfect place to take sunset photos so we waited for the sun to go down.

A little before 6, the sky began to have this golden glow.

By the time we were done, we were famished! From the sandbar, we went to the pavilion for dinner. For our appetizer, we had the Kinilaw, a Filipino dish.

For our main course, we had a Platter of Grilled Chicken, Grilled Fish, Grilled Squid, Rice and Pancit.

For our soup, we had another Filipino dish called Tinola.

T and I both ordered Fresh Mango Shakes to go with our dinner.

After dinner, we borrowed some DVDs from the library since the resort's TV sets don't have cable and called it a night.

Oh my gosh, your trip looks so relaxing! The water looks beaaaauuuutiful!! Geez I haven't eaten yet and my stomach just started growling looking at your food pics lol. I really love the pics you took on the beach during sunset. The sky looks so amazing. I really gotta do some kind of photoshoot like that one day!

Shelter is such a warming word, so yeah, I like this already, even if just because of the idea :) But food also looks great, which is always an integral part of any kind of travel to me... What is Brazo de Mercedes though? Sounds kind of cool lol And I love you in this hat!

Joei, yes! Yes to having a TUmblr account :) That's one of newest and most recent endeavors! Mostly fashion and style related, but with a certain idea behind it, of course ;-) http://withadashofgold.tumblr.com/What's your tumblr all about? On Twitter... I think yes? No? My head is spinning with all of what I am involved with lately, so I can't remember a lot of things until I write them down lol And I have a twitter account for every blog, plus a personal one - which one are you talking about? Am I asking too many questions? :) The personal one is @juliaohso